Haven’t done this in a couple of weeks, so there’s a bit of catch-up here…

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

I not super familiar with this franchise personally, but the trailer for How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World looks visually stunning. It also created more of a visceral desire to watch it than the trailer for LEGO Movie 2, in that…it seems more sincere? Like, LEGO Movie 2 has this sort of outer layer of “childhood toy” sincerity…scuff marks, home-made stuff, “naive” kid things, etc. But that outer-layer is played as “ironic” and “hip.”

In contrast, there is a certain level of actual sincerity to the How To Train Your Dragon trailer. And maybe some might find it mawkish, I dunno. It worked for me, and as I said, I’ve never seen the other movies in the franchise.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

My comments on the previous trailer pretty much require some some expanded thoughts on LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part.

OK. Here we go.

The first LEGO Movie was like lightning in a bottle. Nobody expected anything amazing from it right off the bat, and everybody (well, lots of people, anyway) was blown away by how brilliant it was.

The trailer for the sequel, on the other hand…well, it kinda “landed” on me like that of Wreck-It Ralph 2. Which is to say…it’s a continuation with many of the elements we’re familiar with from the first movie, but it doesn’t feel as “special.” I’ve seen it all before.

It’s not terrible, and I’d probably enjoy a viewing of it. It just doesn’t feel like lightning in a bottle. That’s all.

The Little Stranger

British gothic horror film The Little Stranger seems like a good movie to watch if you’re just starting to regain your equilibrium after watching Hereditary & want to nip that in the bud right away.

Actually: a lot of the same vibes as Hereditary. I don’t know if this film is going to end up as absolutely off-the-wall pants-shittingly NUTS as Hereditary, but…

Kidding

Let’s shift gears and check out the trailer for the new Jim Carrey series from Michel Gondry, Kidding.

This is more of the Jim Carrey we’ve known from his “serious comedy” period—from The Truman Show all the way to Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Quirky, a little dark. Man…kind of also reminds me of a touch of “Rainbow Randolph” from Death To Smoochy!

First Man

First Man, featuring a very serious Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, looks good—but also, you know, very a standard “prestige” big-budget bio-pic. Some great POV shots from being inside the spacecraft.

But…kinda standard. Might get an Oscar nod. You know the drill.

Bad Stepmother

After that Oscar-bait, I wanted to end with something truly garish and awful. Just as a palette-cleanser.

Bad Stepmother is another one of those Lifetime movies repackaged/released for what I assume is the streaming market (the info under the YouTube trailer says it’s “Movie HD in theatre soon—but I just don’t think so. Unless this is international market maybe).

I could have sworn that was was Amanda Peet in the lead role, but it’s **Kristy Swanson**.

Wow. (feel old, yet?)

I hate myself for how much fun it was to watch this. Screaming, stabbing, waving around empty liquor bottles, infidelity, fidelity, mugging at the camera, more screaming. Where the exploitation cinema left off, Lifetime picked up.